CS1254: OPERATING SYSTEMS - Question Bank

UNIT - 1
Part A
1. Define Operating System with suitable diagrams.
2. Explain in detail about a system call.
3. List the System Components of Operating System and explain them.
4. Explain Multiprocessor system categories in detail.
5. How do Multiprocessor systems differ from Distributed systems.
6. How do Distributed systems differ from Clustered systems.
7. Categorize the Clustered systems in detail.
8. Explain about PCB.
9. Define Threads and explain then with their categories.
10. What is client server communication?
11. What is Inter Process Communication?
12. Explain Memory Protection with suitable diagrams.
13. What are various Operating System Services?
14. What is a System Program?
15. State various process states and show them diagrammatically.
16. What is Context Switching?
17. Write in detail about Process Schedulers.
18. State difference between process and thread.
19. What is multiprocessor system?
20. Define clustered systems
21. Differentiate between symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing systems.
22. What is a time sharing system?
23. What is dual mode operation?
24. Define timer.
25. What is process management?
26. Define memory management.
27. Write the difference between file system management and mass storage management.
28. Define caching.
29. What is distributed systems?
30. Define real time embedded system.
31. What is a multimedia system?
32. Write the difference between handheld systems and multimedia systems.
33. What is a handheld system?
34. What are the services provided by operating system?
35. What is resource allocation?
36. What is command interpreter?
37. Define system call.
38. What is a real time system?
39. Define hard real time systems.
40. What is a soft real time system?
41. What is API?
42. Mention the types of system calls.
43. What is process control?
44. What are the different categories comes under system programs?
45. What is the design goal of OS?
46. What is microkernel?
47. What is virtual machine?
48. What is boot strap program?
49. Define process.
50. What are the different states available for process?
51. What is process control block?
52. Define threads.
53. What is scheduler?
54. What is a message passing system?
55. What is buffering?
56. Define synchronization.
57. Define RPC.
58. Differentiate between user thread and kernel thread.
59. What is PThread?
60. Mention the threading issues.

Part B

Very Important

1. Write in detail about the evolution of Operating System with various types. (16)
2. Write in detail about Inter Process Communication with proper examples. (16)
3. Write in detail about Cooperating Processes and the advantages. (8)
With a proper code write in detail about the Producer-Consumer Problem. (8)
4. Explain in detail about threads, multithreading models and threading issues. (16)

Important

5. Briefly explain the following.(16)

i) System calls ii) System programs
6. Explain in detail about OS structure and IPC in Linux.(16)
7. a. Write in detail about following:
Concept of Process (2)
Process Queues with proper Queuing Diagrams. (4)
Context Switching (2)
b. Write in detail about different process schedulers by highlighting the purpose of
each scheduler. (8)

May be asked

8. Brief about means to materialize hardware protection. (16)

 UNIT - 2
Part A
1. Explain threads.
2. Explain different multi threading models.
3. State the definition of CPU Scheduling.
4. What are different threading issues?
5. What are different CPU scheduling algorithms?
6. State the different Scheduling criteria.
7. What is critical region?
8. What is Critical section problem?
9. Define semaphore and types.
10. What is CPU scheduler?
11. Define preemptive scheduling.
12. What is dispatcher?
13. Mention the scheduling criteria.
14. What are the scheduling algorithms available?
15. What is the difference between FCFS and SJF?
16. What is priority scheduling?
17. Define round robin scheduling.
18. What is multilevel queue scheduling?
19. Define multilevel feedback queue scheduling.
20. What is multiprocessor scheduling?
21. What is process affinity?
22. Define load balancing.
23. What are the two general approaches for load balancing?
24. What is PThread scheduling?
25. What in time quantum?
26. Define simulation.
27. What is critical section problem?
28. What are the three requirements to solve the critical section problem?
29. What are the two general approaches for handling critical section problem?
30. Write the difference between preemptive kernel and non preemptive kernels?
31. What is synchronization hardware?
32. Define semaphores.
33. What is binary semaphore?
34. What is counting semaphore?
35. What is deadlock?
36. What is starvation?
37. Mention the classic problems of synchronization?
38. What is bounded buffer problem?
39. Define readers-writers problem.
40. What is dining philosophers’ problem?
41. Define monitors.
42. What is log based recovery?
43. What is a checkpoint?
44. What is the purpose of using locking protocol?
45. Differentiate between growing phase and shrinking phase.
46. What is a timestamp-based protocol?
47. What are the four necessary conditions for deadlock?
48. Mention the characteristics of deadlock.
49. What is resource allocation graph?
50. What are the methods for handling deadlocks?
51. What is deadlock prevention?
52. What is mutual exclusion?
53. What are the ways for preventing deadlocks?
54. What is deadlock avoidance?
55. What is safe state?
56. What is the purpose of using banker’s algorithm?
57. What is safety algorithm?
58. What is process termination?
59. What are the ways for deadlock recovery?
60. What is resource preemption?

Part B

Very Important

1. Write in detail about several CPU scheduling algorithms. (16)

2. Write in detail about Semaphores and monitors. (16)
3. Explain in detail about scheduling criteria and multiprocessor scheduling. (16)
4. Explain in detail about classic problems of synchronization. (16)

Important

5. Explain in detail about deadlock prevention and deadlock avoidance. (16)

6. Write in detail about the Critical Section Problem and scheduling criteria. (16)
7. Describe briefly about deadlock detection and deadlock recovery. (16)

May be asked

8. Write in detail about Algorithm Evaluation. (16)

 UNIT - 3
Part A

1. What are the four deadlock conditions?

2. Write in detail about fragmentation.
3. Write in detail about paging.
4. Define Virtual Memory.
5. Define Segmentation.
6. Write the use of TLB in paging.
7. What is address binding?
8. What is physical address space?
9. What is logical address space?
10. Define dynamic loading.
11. What is dynamic linking?
12. Write the difference between static and dynamic linking?
13. What is swapping?
14. What is contiguous memory allocation?
15. Differentiate between first fit and best fit.
16. What is fragmentation?
17. What is external fragmentation?
18. Define internal fragmentation.
19. What is paging?
20. What is page offset?
21. What is hierarchical paging?
22. What is forward mapped page table?
23. What is a hash page table?
24. Define inverted page table.
25. What is Pentium segmentation?
26. What is Pentium paging?
27. What is virtual memory?
28. Define demand paging.
29. What is pure demand paging?
30. What is page replacement?
31. Why we are going for page replacement algorithm?
32. Define lazy swapper.
33. Define pager. Why it is called as pager?
34. Define MMU.
35. What are the functions of MMU?
36. Define shared libraries.
37. Define Load time.
38. Define Compile time.
39. Define Execution time.
40. What is the use of relocation register?
41. Define Roll in and Roll out.
42. Differentiate between paging and segmentation.
43. What is mean by partition and where it will be used?
44. Define TLB miss.
45. Explain the use of valid and invalid bit?
46. Explain the reentrant code in shared pages?
47. Define worst bit.
48. What are the steps in handling a page fault?
49. Describe about pure demand paging.
50. How to calculate the effective access time?
51. Describe the system calls used in Copy-on-Write?
52. Define Modify bit or dirty bit.
53. How the service is provided by OS when page fault is occurred?
54. Differentiate between LRU and Optimal page replacement algorithm.
55. Differentiate between Equal allocation and Proportional allocation algorithm.
56. What is the cause of thrashing?
57. Define Thrashing.
58. Explain about Working set model.
59. How to reduce the page fault rate?
60. How to reduce the thrashing level and what is the relationship between CPU
utilization and degree of multiprogramming?

Part B

Very Important

1. Write in detail about Paging. (16)

2. Write in detail about Segmentation. (16)
3. Define page fault. Explain in detail about demand paging. (16)
4. Explain in detail about all page replacement algorithms with example. (16)

Important

5. Write in detail about Segmentation with Paging.(16)

6. Write in detail about the Contiguous memory allocation. (16)
7. Write in detail about Algorithm Evaluation in page replacement. (16)

May be asked

8. Write in detail about process creation. (16)

 UNIT 4

PART A

1. What is meant by file?

2. Define File Management
3. Give some examples of File Systems.
4. Define Directory
5. State the File Attributes.
6. List out the different types of Files
7. Define mounting.
8. Why do we need Mounting Mechanism?
9. What is mean by immutable files?
10. What are the various file protection methods?
11. What are various file access methods?
12. What are the operations does include in a file?
13. Define Batch File.
14. What do you meant by Resource and Data Fork?
15. Mention the different type of directory structure.
16. Write note on sequential access.
17. Give Short notes on Direct Access.
18. State other File Access Methods.
19. Explain the attributes of file protection
20. Write note on acyclic graph directories.
21. What are the operations does include in a directory?
22. What are UFD and MFD?
23. Define absolute path name.
24. Define relative path name.
25. What does a File made up of?
26. Define Relative Block number.
27. How does the System satisfy a request for record N in a file?
28. Define working set model.
29. How the Policy decision in a Tree Structured directory concerns?
30. What is the use of Garbage Collection in General Graph Directory?
31. How do we know when a new link will complete a cycle?
32. What are the merits of an acyclic Graph?
33. Define Mount Point
34. What does a System configuration file consists of?
35. State the issues arise when sharing files.
36. Give the challenges imposed to extend sharing.
37. Define DFS & ACL.
38. Define DNS & RPC.
39. Define NIS & NFS
40. Expand NIS & CIFS
41. Define WWW & LDAP.
42. What is the use of LDAP
 43. Define Anonymous Access.
44. What do you meant by the term Metadata?
45. What are the two failure modes in File System?
46. What is Consistency Semantics?
47. What is UNIX semantics?
48. What is Session semantics?
49. State the Immutable-shared-Files Semantics.
50. How will you provide protection Mechanism to a File?
51. What do you meant by Controlled Access?
52. What are the operations involved in Controlled Access?
53. What is the role of file Drivers?
54. What does the Boot block contains?
55. What is the purpose of File Descriptor?
56. When the Raw Disk is used?
57. What is the role of VFS Interface?
58. What is the use of FAT?
59. How will you recover files when issues occur?
60. What is the role of Log-structured File Systems?

PART B

Very Important

1. Write in detail about file concepts, and file access.

2. Briefly explain in detail about the Directory Structure and its Implementation
3. Elaborate the concept of Free Space Management
4. Explain in detail about the Log-Structured file Systems.
Important

5. Describe in detail about file allocation methods.

6. Discuss in detail about File system structure, mounting and file sharing.
7. Discuss how performance on NFS implementation

May be asked

8. Discuss in detail about Protection and Recovery of a File system.

 UNIT 5
PART A

1. Define seek time.

2. Define latency time.
3. What are the allocation methods of a disk space?
4. What are the advantages of contiguous allocation?
5. What are the drawbacks of contiguous allocation of disk space?
6. What are the advantages of Linked allocation?
7. What are the disadvantages of Linked allocation?
8. What are the advantages of Indexed allocation?
9. How can the index blocks be implemented in the indexed allocation scheme?
10. Define rotational latency and disk bandwidth.
11. How free-space is managed using bit vector implementation?
12. Define buffering.
13. Define caching.
14. Define spooling.
15. What are the various disk-scheduling algorithms?
16. What is low-level formatting?
17. What is the use of boot block?
18. What is physical formatting?
19. What is mean by i-node?
20. Define RAID.
21. What is the difference between SCAN and C-SCAN scheduling?
22. What is the difference between LOOK and C-LOOK scheduling?
23. What is the use of bad blocks?
24. What are the levels used in RAID.
25. How to select the RAID level.
26. What are the problems in RAID?
27. What is sector sparing?
28. Define SAN.
29. What is swap-space management?
30. What are the advantages of RAID?
31. Briefly discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of sector sparing and
sector slipping.
32. Define swap-space?
33. Why rotational latency usually not considered in disk scheduling?
34. Define partition.
35. Device drivers and DLM
36. Explain LDAP.
37. What do you meant by Cache coherency situation?
38. Define interrupt and types of interrupt.
39. Define software interrupt.
40. How to protect the I/O?
41. Define Error handling in Kernel I/O Subsystem.
42. What is meant by Polling?
 43. What is difference between blocking and non blocking IO.
44. What are the two methods of IO subsystem?
45. Explain about double buffering.
46. Define daisy chain.
47. What is mean by memory mapped IO.
48. How to calculate the location of swap space?
49. Define the boot partition.
50. Define CLV.
51. Why we are going for disk scheduling?
52. Define FCFS scheduling.
53. Define SSTF scheduling.
54. What are the disadvantages of FCFS scheduling?
55. How to select the particular algorithm for disk scheduling?
56. What are the disadvantages of SCAN scheduling?
57. What are the disadvantages C-SCAN of scheduling?
58. What is block level striping?
59. What is the extension of RAID?
60. Define tertiary storage devices and its examples.

PART B

1. Write in detail about disk scheduling.

2. Discuss in detail about allocation methods in Disk Management.
3. Write in detail about free space management.
4. Explain in detail about RAID Structure.
5. Discuss in detail about Swap Space Management
6. Write in detail about the Disk structure and its Attachment
7. Give the Overview of Mass storage Structure and Describe in detail about Stable and
tertiary Storage
8. Compare and Contrast about the File Systems in Windows OS and LINUX OS.